How to Find a Good Blog Party

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Hi, bloggers. Today brings post #4 in my How to Blog Party series, which is written for new and experienced bloggers...lots of tips and tricks for joining and hosting a blog/link party. You can click here to start at the beginning of the series and see a round-up of all the posts so far. Last week, we talked about when you are ready to join a blog party.

This week's topic is: How to find a good blog party

A few of the questions I get from new bloggers are:

1) Do I have to be invited to a blog party?
and
2) How do I find a good blog party? 

The answer to the first question is easy. No, you do not have to be invited to join a blog party. Since most bloggers host link parties for the sake of growing their sites, they welcome any and all guests...provided that the content shared is relevant/clean and the participants graciously read and follow the guidelines for the party.

If you're cruising the blogosphere and find a link party that looks interesting and you have a post that will fit the theme of the party, go ahead and link it up!

The second question may have a slightly more complicated answer. Maybe it's a no-brainer for you, as it seems as if you'll find a blog party on every blog out there these days. There is, however, a difference between a blog party and a good blog party.

A good blog party is beneficial to both the person hosting it and the guests. Quite honestly, much of a blog party's success comes from the guests. Do they follow the guidelines for the party? Do they actually participate and make an effort to engage other party-goers, or do they link up a post and run to the next site?

Ideally, the hostess gets a decent amount of traffic and some new Followers/Subscribers from the guests and other visitors...and the guests who participate receive the same.

Don't let the size of a blog party discourage you from linking up. The quality of a link party doesn't always have to do with the size of the blog hosting the link-up or even the amount of links you see on the site, although some large parties are obviously popular for a reason. There are many smaller blog parties that are worth your time...and you may end up with more traffic from those small parties.

Here are a few ways to find a blog party:

• Read other blogs, comment, and click around through people's blog rolls (lists of a person's favorite blogs--usually on a sidebar or separate link/page). Many bloggers who host regular link parties make a note of it somewhere on their homepage.

• There are also entire sites and blogs dedicated to showcasing and organizing lists of the blog parties around the blogosphere. One example is Linky Here. Those are nice to browse, but many times the parties listed are those which have been uploaded by the hosts. So it's not always an accurate picture of what's out there.

• Look at the links that bloggers list at the end of posts they have added to blog parties. Usually, you'll see something like "Linking to ____" (insert name of blog or blog party here).

You can remember which ones you want to join by keeping a list in your post dashboard, a Pinterest board dedicated to blog topics, or an internet bookmark file.

Deciding which parties you enjoy and are worth your time will take a bit of trial and error. Try a few different parties several times each, and discover which ones are the best for you and your blog. Link up selectively (!) and wait to see which parties you A) enjoy the most and B) bring you a good return for your time.

Other tips? 

Look for blogs that publish features from party-goers, whether it's through a feature on the host blog or the host's FB, Pinterest, or Twitter pages.

Look for parties that have a few guidelines in place for participants. These are the parties that you can typically expect a good experience from. The hostess asks that guests meet certain guidelines (ie. linking back or visiting other guests), and will usually go take the time to visit links, give a few shout-outs or features, etc. My own experience has been that free-for-all parties with no rules or guidelines tend to give very little return.

You've read up, you know how blog parties work, you know how to find one, and you want to link something up. How do you choose a post to link up? Join me next week for the answer!

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, I'd love for you to click the "Pin It" button to add this post to Pinterest, or +1 me for Google+. 

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